I See the World Through You
by Monisse
Summary: Something inside of him triggered the knowledge that it wouldn't be, the last time that he crossed lines because of this woman who became his partner not long ago. What scared him the most was not the act itself, but the intense driving of it.
1. Introduction

Here's my latest challenge, after a while away from the fanfiction world, to write one-shots under 100 themes. I know I'll spend an eternity to complete this, but as a friend said to me, this is the perfect challenge to exercise my mind.  
Just remember, reviews are always an incentive and are very appreciated, if you are reading this, please leave some feedback.

_Frozen lakes and night storms, __  
__Most you'll cross on your own, __  
__You'll face the biggest landslides. __  
__I'll catch you on the hardest falls, __  
__I'll carry you inside this walls, __  
__We'll sing through all the highest times._

_David Fonseca - I see the world through you_

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**Theme:** Introduction  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Words:** 819  
**Rating:** K  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own nothing.

In a mid autumn day, she found herself, once more, kneeled in front of what she so proudly called her job. To anyone else, the sight in the ground would drive away their attention. But not the one of the scientist who was now dressing her slender fingers in white gloves. Her hands held her auburn curls in disarray and clasped them into a neat ponytail in the back of her head.  
Gloved fingers worked meticulously on the white shards of what used to be a human being before, alive and breathing, and now reduced to nothing but bones.

That was what she liked the most, not the inevitability of death, of course, but that she could find answers in the deepest core of the human body. No one could exceed her. That was also what had driven her there. Being on the top of the forensic anthropology board of scientists had its benefits along side with its disadvantages. One of them was leaving the pure study of ancient remains, which she loved so much, to be called upon the most degrading action of human kind, a murder.

And there she was, revolving fragments of bones, filled with dirt, between her fingers, with the last rays of the orange sunset burning in her face and the cool breeze playing with the strays of hair that stubbornly broke free from their grasp.  
She finally rested her weight in her legs, her body stood still on her knees. A hand came up to clean the shade of sweat forming in her forehead and a not long after she had finished and declared it a murder victim, a tumult ran all around her and sirens were screaming in the air.

After a while, she heard hurried steps in her direction and for a fraction of second her eyes averted from the ground and rested in the figure that made his way, hastily, towards her. Her mind recognized the stereotype. Dark haired, tall, muscular. Dark suit, white shirt and black glasses. All in all an FBI agent, the elite of the United States. Or so they thought, in their ego induced minds.  
She shook her head and returned her attention to the remains, they surely were more interesting than the over self-confidant man that soon would open his mouth and produce some nonsensical verdict about sexy scientists and grotesque human remains. For sure she had worked with many of those along the years, whenever her expertise was required in an official country matter, a murder for instances. They had the power to make her burst into a spiral of angry words at their antics and humorless jokes about her job.

In her line of sight she saw two legs dressed in black fabric. She recognized them as the ones of the man. She let her eyes travel the length of his long and large legs. Blue eyes came in contact with a little token of appraisal. Before her eyes there was a simple belt buckle, but not of the common kind, this one held a deep hue of red and words that referred to his man-hood.

'_Cocky'_, it said.

She wanted to laugh, roll her eyes and burst into sarcastic laughter if she could, but her rational mind reminded her of the place and purpose of her visit. Nonetheless, a deprived snort erupted from deep in her throat, nothing too feminine in contrast to the surroundings. Her eyes eventually rolled in disregard and set once again in the ground.

"Who are you?" She spat the words in his direction, disdain evident in her voice.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, and this is my murder investigation."

He reached one hand to his glasses and took them off, revealing bright brown eyes beneath.

For the first time she looked at him, truly saw him for the first time. Immediately she was drawn to those brown eyes, a deep shade of chocolate in contrast with the deep blue of her own. She didn't know why but they captivated her and held her steady in place in a mixture of amazement and respect.

His other arm extended forward in a simple gesture of sympathy.  
For the longest of times she just stood there, knees deep in mud and looked straight to the hand that floated in front of her eyes, opened in her direction, waiting for her world to move.

Cautiously, she extracted one of her hands from the latex glove and placed it above his one. The thermal shock was immediate and a tingling sensation ran from her cold hand to her chest and hung there. She felt more than saw, his warm fingers wrap themselves around her small hand. He carefully pushed her hand to make her stand upright, eye to eye with him, as an equal.

And she finally spoke in a soft voice.

"My name is Dr. Temperance Brennan."

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I hope you liked! Reviews would be lovely!


	2. Love

**Theme:** Love  
**Words:** 894  
**Pairing:** Brennan/Booth  
**Rate:** T  
**Disclaimer:** Once again, the characters are not mine.

She sighed deeply and watched the gust of warm air condensate in the freezing, stagnated air that enveloped the room. Her eyes watched the slow movement of the curtains that danced to the soft breeze that blew from the slightly open window. The light of the night outside, bright and fair, shone in the bedroom and set alight the white tangle of sheets and legs in the far bottom of the bed.

Her body shivered and she felt her flesh slowly overcome with small goose bumps. Slowly, not to disturb the faint quietness that reigned around her, she shifted in bed closer to the warm body beside her.  
There, right next to her, laid a man, warm and inviting. She sighed again and let her exposed body melt against his, feeling the touch of rough skin on soft one. While her head came to rest in the spot between his neck and the shoulder, the perfect place to stay, her hand traveled slowly around his large torso, her fingertips caressed his body lightly.

"Temperance?" He asked, his voice was rough with sleep and she couldn't fight the shiver that ran up her spine and the warmth that pooled in her stomach at the sound of her full name coming out of his lips.

"Hum?" She mumbled, sleepily, as his scent invaded her nostrils. She fought hard to keep her eyelids open, to listen to his words, but the peaceful comfort that wrapped her senses in moments like this, when she felt secure and truly happy, always got the best of her.

"Why don't you say it?" His voice was now crystal clear and pierced the silence of the room.

For a moment the question didn't register, his words sounded distant and foggy in her almost sleep induced mind. It took a while for the words to form a meaning in her brain and when they did a spasm ran down her body and her muscles tensed enveloped in his arms. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart beat rapidly in her chest, against his.

She should have known better. For a while she had been in this state of fantasy, where everything seemed colorful and not like the many shades of grey that she usually saw. With him everything seemed so simple and clean, there were no worries, he never rushed her, never demanded anything, only her very best.  
It made her feel like a fool now, to think everything could be like this forever, that he would never ask her this exact question. She always thought that she could go on in life with her feelings encased in a secure metaphoric box inside her chest.

She had never said it aloud, and long gone were the times when she had said it, but it turned to be that that same feeling always came associated with pain and abandonment. And the last thing she wanted was so expose herself, only to be left alone in the end.

"I'm not the kind of person to say it." She said in a trembling voice, resting her face further in his chest, hiding the fear in her eyes.

"But… I figured that after all this time you would…" His voice trembled with a thousand emotions. She didn't' exceed at categorizing someone else's emotions, but she became quite good at reading his. He was nervous; a deep fear was evident in the unevenness of his words.

"What?" She heard herself asking.

"Say it." He pleaded in a deep but soft voice.

A smile crossed her lips. Despite their situation he was still trying hard to gain control of it, trying with all his might to appear calm and collected when, deep inside, she knew that he was feeling as fearful of these new emotions as she was.

And suddenly, she realized that it didn't matter if she said it or not, because there was only one person in her world that would never leave her, and that person was currently laying in her bed, holding her body in his arms close to him and his hands softly caressed her bare skin in a loving way that no other man had made her feel. This sentiment of worship for everything that she was and did made her feel complete and able to expose herself to him.

Because of him, she was the very best.

She lifted her head from the comfortable position in his chest, set herself in her elbows and looked straight at him. Her blue eyes, now full of emotional knowledge and perseverance, pierced through his pleading ones. A smile erupted in her lips and she looked gleefully at him.

"Booth… I'm not a woman who verbalizes her emotions." She whispered to him and watched his eyes open wide in fear.

His mouth opened and closed with no sound coming out of it. He was completely astonished and the shock was evident in his expression.

The corner of her mouth twisted in a wicked grin and a glint shone in her vibrant blue eyes.

She leaned her bare body closer to his, and her mind caught the sharp excited intake of breath coming from his mouth before softly whispering in his ear.

"I will spend the rest of my life showing you how much I do."

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Review, it will contribute a greatly to my happiness!


	3. Blood

**Theme:** Blood  
**Words:** 1053  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Spoilers:** 5x10 -The Con Man in the MethLab  
**Rating:** T - for the theme.  
**Disclaimer:** uni is getting the best of me. For this theme I did a minor research in Scientific American. The characters are not mine.  
Thank you so much for the nice amount of reviews, favorites and alerts, they mean a lot to me.

It all happened so fast. In one moment her partner was retrieving his shotgun from behind his back and in the other there were cries of a child, a father in the ground and a mother being held hostage. She moved quickly and unceremoniously leaned over the man next to her and took the small gun from its holster.  
A wave of control fueled her moves and she focused her blue eyes on the target in front of her.

"Booth?" She heard herself mumbling in a rapid succession over his shoulder, and his strong voice delivered the words back in a steady, soft tone than she found unnerving.

"Not now, Bones." And the nickname came harsh against his lips and the turn of his head silently sent a warning to her.

"Can I try and shoot him?" Sometimes she doesn't realize that she steps outside boundaries and dances over invisible lines without really acknowledging them.

"No." He hissed.

"Why? I'm a good shot." Her voice was exasperated.

"You're not a good shot."

After so many years working together and proving her skills with weapons she couldn't believe that he still doubted her abilities. A weak sensation of hurt crossed her mind but was slowly forgotten when their fight spiraled into a crescendo, a rather uncomfortable one, when there was a gun in her hands and in his a large shotgun, both directed at the police officer and his hostage.  
Sweat formed in the palm of her hands and she felt them shake slightly.

"Well, you are." She moved her head towards him to acknowledge the words, just to see his brow furrowed in concentration despite the sheen curtain of sweat in his forehead; he never flinched, not once.

He was in full sniper mode, and deep inside, in one unrecognized side of her mind, it scared her.  
Nonetheless, she kept talking. It seemed that the adrenaline that now ran in her veins made her brain burst with a thousand possibilities and her mouth moved without her even realizing what came out of it.

"If we switched weapons, then you'd be able to shoot him between the eyes." She saw, from the corner of her eyes, his face twitch in anger under her statement.

The sound of a gunshot crossed the air alongside with a breathless gasp, the echo was defining and made her head scream in pain and her ears rang. For a second it all seemed confusing, because she still held the gun in her hands, untouched, as well as he had his.

"Bones?" The far away echo of his voice, barely unnoticed by her ears.

Crushing down in the hard street floor with trembling legs, her eyes widened in shock and fear replaced the adrenaline that once worked her body.

Blue eyes blurred for a moment. It was then that the pain rushed through her insides and ripped over in her flesh.

"Bones, are you ok?" He asked again, this time more forcefully. "Bones?"

At his demanding and scared tone her heart beat accelerated and it only added for more blood to escape the wound and with the other trembling hand she engaged in a pathetic effort to stop the bleeding, or at least attenuate the offending pain burning in her skin.

"I'm ok." She finally breathed out.

She looked downwards to where it was excruciatingly painful, her arm. There was blood, a simple line of dark and warm liquid tainted her once clean shirt. Single droplets of bright red fell down her fingertips.

Blood is supposed to circulate inside the body and is virtually invisible to the human eye. The scientific fact is that when it is on the outside the mind triggers an unconscious reaction that leads the person to think that the corporal integrity is compromised.  
Anthropologically speaking, she knows that blood has a strong symbolism in various cultures and in some others it is a taboo.  
Her brain faintly recognized that her survival instincts were working correctly.

She was never a woman to squirm over flesh, decomposed bodies or blood, but seeing her own blood spilling out of a bullet wound made her scared. She was afraid. She knew that, if the fear was pathologic, known as hemophobia, it could incapacitate the person when medical care was imperative. It happened because the bodily reaction towards blood is different than any other phobia, which goes along with accelerated cardio rhythm and arterial pressure.

These reactions quickly fade and were replaced by nausea and dizziness. Her head started to hurt and her arm slowly went numb.

In her line of vision she saw her partner quickly running down the road, shotgun in hand. All his muscles contracted as his legs drove him faster and faster forward and his finger worked the trigger in the direction of the runaway car.  
Suddenly everything was quiet again and she finally saw his face turned towards her. He walked slowly back to the place where she was now trying to stand up, still holding the gun in her hand.

She breathed with difficulty; each intake of air was painful. Her eyes settled on his and there she saw all the fear, pain and relief that swam in that sea of deep brown. He looked lost but at the same time filled with a sense of honor as he crossed the distance towards her with large steps.

Loud sirens filled the air around them and the next sounds were two guns hitting the ground as their bodies got closer and closer. He stopped all of a sudden and both looked down at her blood damped shirt, the stain got larger by the minute.

"I'm sorry, Temperance." He said in a trembling whisper against her face as his hands came up to cradle her face. She could feel them tremble with the last shots of adrenaline in his bodies. "I'm so sorry." And then his arms wrapped around her, carefully, and brought her closer to his chest.

Now that he was there with her, the fear seemed to wash away with the blood dripping from her arm. She rested her head in his shoulder and let herself be comforted only by the rapid beat of his heart. It was finally over.


	4. Family

**Theme:** Family  
**Words:** 1255  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Rating:** K  
**Disclaimer:** The characters are not mine. This was done as a gift, an epilogue for a story I was 'betaying'.

The night cast shadows in the lonely streets while small snowflakes fell softly to the ground. Inside the car, a comfortable warmth embraced her figure and made her company in the solitary way back home. There was a soft tune coming out of the speakers, a sad song she didn't' recognized but listened nonetheless.  
Time passed in her wrist clock as she speeded through the city, in a never ending road, to a place where she could rest after an exhausting day of work. The car entered a quiet road surrounded by large houses, fancy and beautiful.

She pushed the car into a small driveway in front of one of them and, after turning off the ignition, she grabbed her purse and the bags of takeout food that lay on the seat beside her.  
Slender hands readjusted the coat and scarf, and she prepared herself to step into the cold air of a winter night.

She crossed the small front yard, which was slowly being covered in a soft blanket of snow. Pausing, she looked around, taking in her surroundings. Soon enough, kids would be running around in the snow, snowmen's would be built and dressed up, leaving the children shivering in the cold air but with large smiles in their faces; snowballs would be flying around in this quiet neighborhood.

It was a season she had never liked, at least not after her parents left. Since then, she had never enjoyed the true spirit of the season. The first falling snow of the season meant nothing to her, nor did the quiet nights around the fireplace drinking hot beverages. No, those memories had meant nothing to her for a long while. She shook her head, to empty her mind of longing images, and resumed walking towards the front door of the house, while reaching into her pocket for the keys.

Warm air enveloped her being when she finally opened the door. Her cheeks, cold from the outside's air, rapidly warmed up and became flushed with a healthy shade of pink. Her blue eyes closed in enjoyment and a small smile appeared in her lips. She let herself reveal in the faint smell of burning wood in the fireplace and the soft orange glow coming from inside the living room.

Her eyes opened again, and she walked inside, finally discarding the bags of food and her own purse in the small table by the door. It was quiet and dark all around; the lights were off, except from the glow that came from the fire place in the living room. She walked towards it; the sound of her heels in the hardwood floor was the only sound surrounding her. She took off her coat and placed it carefully in the hanger, and with lack of ceremony due to a tired body, she let her weight fall in the sofa with a relief sigh escaping her lips.

Her eyes scanned the room around, she knew her house quite well, but once in a while she found herself amazed by its ambiance. There were books, of course, of all shapes and forms piled tightly in shelves, all around the room. A large TV rested in the corner. Statues of foreign gods were mingled with sports trophies. Ancient artifacts among war commendations. She smiled to herself and breathed in the air of comfort.

Her eyes fell on a large book placed in the coffee table, right in front of her. She had never seen that book before, and curiosity took the best of her. She reached forward and brought it to her lap. She let her hand brush over the smooth surface of it, a fine black leather cover. Her fingers traced the letters in the front, in a neat calligraphy in gold ink two words stood proud in the center.

"_My family_"

The words pierced in her heart and brought shadows of tears to her eyes. They were not tears of sadness; those were long past gone; they were of joy, of something she had missed for so long and at last had found. She was finally part of something, of someone.

When she opened the book her heart skipped a bit at the sight of the front page. It was a photo album. Her eyes froze over the only picture in the center of the page and her mind wandered.

She had always thought that nothing was missing in her life and what she had obtained with him, her partner, was too much to bear, there was too much at stake if they decided to cross their paths. When she weighted the pro and cons, instead of letting her heart decide, like he had taught her, her brain took the best of her. It had been a wrong decision, which she still regretted, even today.  
She had lost him, forever, she had thought. Against a wrong judgment she had hurt him, let him devastated and with a broken heart to mend. It had been a road of ups and downs, hardships and repaired souls, but in the end, he found in his heart forgiveness and gave her a place in his life again. She was finally where she belonged.

Running steps and laughter in the stairs brought her back from the reverie. The small paces came first, sure paces of a boy followed by the small ones of a little girl. They ran to her side and without even thinking her arms stretched to accommodate the children who smiled brightly at her. They let themselves fall into her open arms and while the curly haired boy nestled his face in her neck, the little girl rested her small head in her chest.

Then there was another set of steps, these ones she knew far too well. They were paused, confident and soothing.

He walked to her side and watched the embrace between her and the little ones. For as much as he witnessed it in the nights she came late from work, it never seized to amaze him how perfectly they matched together. A warm sensation embraced his heart, a feeling he knew that was also pooling in her heart.

Their eyes met above the kid's heads and immediately got caught in the devotion pouring from one another. Words were not needed to describe the feelings arise once again between them. She smiled brightly at him and saw him returning a content smile back.

He crossed the small space between them and sat beside her on the sofa. The kids were still clinging lovingly to her and now smiled brightly at their father.

There was no need to see the rest of the book, for the pictures it held were a perfect mirror of the scene unfolding around her. There were bright smiles towards her, hugs and emotions for her to share with them, finally a family to come home.

She silently promised she would never run away, not from them, not from the family that loved and cherished her.

He leaned forward and regarded her with a lingering kiss on the lips. It did not last longer, but like every time their lips met, in that silent touch, it made their souls roar. It was like coming home after a long time. His lips traveled up against her skin as his strong arms wrapped themselves around her, also reaching for the little ones that stared back at them with amused faces.

"We're a family." He whispered in her ear and she silently nodded.

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I hope everyone likes it and leave a review!


	5. Cold

**Theme: **Cold  
**Words: **895**  
Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Spoilers:** None  
**Rating:** T  
**Disclaimer:** Epic fail on my part for not noticing that there was no "Cold" theme in the 100 themes challenge. So, just replaced the theme Cat for this one. Also, this is an extended version of a previous 100 word drabble. As always the characters are not mine. Thank you in advance to anyone who reviews!

The gelid stagnate air of the room penetrated her limbs and brought uncomfortable feelings with it. Her hands tightened the soft pink robe around her frame, but the classy silk fabric was barely enough to shelter her body from the cold.  
Up in the skies, the clouds were painted with an angry shade of dark grey, heavy with water and thunder. The similarities with her own interior were not lost on her, as she stood by the wide window of her bedroom and watched the skies fall down in the form of large drops of rain.

In some nights she found herself tossing and turning in the bed, the lack of sleep kept her awake and watchful of the passing hours on the bedside table's clock. In nights like these she felt the urge to stand by the window and watch the world evolve beneath. Tonight the streets were empty, only the heavy rain washed away the crude remembrances of a busy day outside.

Ever since her family had been ripped apart that she had become fond of the rain. Watching it fall turned to be almost a game in which she indulged from time to time, when her heart became so heavy with emotions that she actually prayed, begged, hoped that the falling water would wash away those feelings of pain and loneliness.  
As years passed by she became aware that those feelings could not be dragged into the drain with the cascades of water, but they would be forever tattooed in her mind, nevertheless she still watched the rain fall in nights like these.

She sighed; a gust of warm air left her lips and condensed over the cold surface of the glass. Her fingers traveled over it, cleaning the moisture remaining there which annulled her vision of the street below. It was then that her focus shifted from what was beyond the transparent material to the image reflected in it. There was a silhouette far behind her.

Turning her head to look over her shoulder, she found there a man, an inviting source of heat. That man, her partner, friend and lover all combined in one single human being, was sprawled over the majority of her bed, the sheet barely covered his stunning naked body.

A small smile crossed her lips while watching him. She then wondered if she could identify the exact moment when she had become exceedingly good at reading his body language, for he could not fool ser senses now. As soon as she had stepped from the bed she knew the mere absence of her presence would trigger his well trained sniper skills, and although he laid perfectly still in between the sheets, she knew better.

His seemingly regular breathing and almost perfect muscular relaxation were not enough to deceive her. Deep down she knew he had trained his senses on her long ago, and for as much as she had been uncomfortable and would often infuriate her in the beginning, they were now seen as a sign of protection and the deep adoration he had for her. It wasn't a wonder that the man barely asleep there, the incurable romantic that he was, would use his war expertise as a form of love when she was the target.

She was grateful, although she would never admit out loud, for his ability to always keep her safe, yet allowing her to experience wildly and have her own time, but always keeping a vigilant eye on her. All those years ago, she could have run because of it. Run as far as she could from him and the heavy emotional baggage that he carried and demanded, but she had done otherwise, she had embraced him and allowed all those feelings to wash upon her and to live by his side whatever life brought them, be it pleasure or be it sorrows.

She crossed the small space between her position in front of the window and the foot of the bed, her feet soundless in the dark wood floor. After discarding the silk robe, she pushed the sheet aside and allowed her body to slide inside carefully.

Her own naked curves melded into his while her slender fingers ran across the strong planes of his chest in the search for some warmth. He jerked immediately, validating her previous argument of his inability to pretend he had been asleep. It made the grin that she already had, spread further across her face.

"Ohh, Bones!" He said with a voice still laced with the last remains of sleep. Without opening his eyes, in instinct, he entwined his own large and warm hand with hers above his chest.

That gesture alone was enough to heat her entire body and ignite feelings that had been dormant as she stood by the window wrapped in the cold air of the night. The comfort she found between his arms reminded her that she had someone that cared for her, someone who chased the cold air of loneliness away.

"Your hands are cold." He simply stated while his arms brought her body impossibly close to his and her head settled comfortably on the vast space of his shoulder.

"Yes, but you know what they say... cold hands, warm heart." She whispered softly, close to his neck, before drifting off to sleep again.


	6. Dying

**Theme:** Dying  
**Words:** 625  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Spoilers:** 3x14 - The Wannabe in the Weeds  
**Rating:** T  
**Disclaimer:** This popped in my head a lonwhile back and was finished a few weeks ago. I'm very proud of this small one shot about a well worn theme. Enjoy and don't forget to review!

It could have been a great night. The night when, for the first time in years, she stepped in front of loved ones and strangers, undressed the metaphorical shell around her fragile interior and sang to the top of her lungs. It could have been one of the happiest nights of her life.

It _could._

The past tense would forever haunt her mind and rational thoughts from that moment on.  
Years would pass before she would be able to muster the first few notes of that song ever again, and undoubtedly, she would never be able to erase the image before her.

At that moment, as her partner fell helplessly to the ground, an instinct, as pure and raw as the blood rushing in her veins, took hostage her ability to think coherently. Her hand reached for his gun and pulled the trigger with an anger and precision she never felt before.

Later she would stop, seemingly immersed in a trance in front of her bathroom's mirror after incessantly washing away the angry red stains in her hands, rationalize the day, and realize that she had taken, yet, another life. Her short list had raised another notch because of him. How easy it had been to pull the trigger to protect him once more.  
Should it had bother her, to take a human life, even thought she had been moved by natural instincts of protection? But that thought alone, that she was able to do it so easily for him, out of rage, out of pain, out of love, didn't scare her mind as much as what had occurred afterwards.

She watched him bleed through her fingers.

Never being a woman to squirm over things like blood or human remains, for it was part of her life, she recognized that there was something different in the feeling of his blood in her hand. Her partner's own blood. It felt like a physical, warm but unpleasant reminder of his palpable mortality. Had she been so naïve to think that he would never get injured past a few trips to the hospital whenever she got in trouble and his alpha male instincts surfaced? She had been so wrong.

It was then that she recognized that the insistent calling and the hysterical voice of a woman was hers and it was filling the room in between the silent shocked gasps of people surrounding them.

"Booth! Come on. Booth!" She kept screaming.

As she sang that never ending mantra, all sounds around her seemed to mix in an undistinguishable turmoil of known voices. She vaguely noticed the shocked expression upon her best friend's face, her boss' mouth moving with words she seemed not to hear, and someone else on the phone asking for aid. It threatened to engulf the last remains of her sanity and her voice rose above it all once again, begging with his name upon her lips.

Her arms enveloped him in a desperate embrace; her lips appealed to the last strains of his strength to fight back, but when she looked at him once more, she saw his dark brown eyes lose the focus and slowly close their eyelids.

She had always laughed at the irrationality of when facing death time slowed down and everything seemed to play in slow-motion. In all her reasonable wisdom and knowledge accumulated over the years, she would never imagine she would experience that physical impossibility in the first person, and be washed by the raw emotions that it brought along.

It felt like dying, although it was not her time to go yet, but it was his death she was witnessing, and she could only do so much to prevent his life strength to slip away between her slender fingers.

And in a heartbeat he was gone.


	7. Precious Treasure

**Theme:** Precious Treasure  
**Words:** 362  
**Pairing:** Booth/Brennan  
**Rating:** K (It's been a while)  
**Disclaimer:** This is a short one shot about a scene that I really love in Season one. It will probably take a while before I can write another one shot for these themes. We shall see. Thank you all who have been reviewing and thank you the ones that will still review. Your words inspire me to go on.

He had met her as an anthropologist in the first place; a woman of the world who's heart beat passionately about ancient cultures and her job.

Every day since he had laid eyes upon her for the first time, he had witnessed the different pieces that hung around her neck, pieces which sometimes made his eyes divert farther down her chest. The heat that always colored his cheek afterwards was a solid reminder to make that the last time, albeit a lie, that he would indulge in appreciating her necklaces or the appealing earrings hanging from her small lobes.

Past the embarrassment and the fear of being caught peeping at what he should not be, his mind would wonder. From which far land they had come, which tribe had neatly crafted such a beautiful piece of art to adorn that blue eyed, auburn haired, stubborn and self assured woman?

He had been so certain that it reflected her nature that he had been blind to the deeper truth. How far from the reality he had been, but how could he have known? His partner was a closed box of secrets he had yet to learn.

Something inside of him triggered the knowledge that it wouldn't be, for certain, the last time that he crossed lines because of this woman who became his partner not long ago. What scared him the most was not the act itself, but the intense driving force behind it. When he looked at her from across the narrow distance that separated their chairs and the vast infinity that isolated both from their friends in that room, he knew exactly what had motivated him. It was written all over her bruised face.

Far from being a cultural fashion statement, they were a desperate cry to keep the image of her mother with her, an apparent silent plea for protection and comfort to the maternal figure long gone.

And then he knew, as the cool metal of the single earring fell across his palm to dingle in the air, between his fingers, the look of astonishment and thankfulness swimming in her face was enough to redeem his soul from sin.


End file.
